After the Fact
by audi
Summary: Companion/sequel to 'Phases'. Sirius muses about Azkaban, the Marauders and Remus (sbxrl)


Disclaimer: Sirius and Remus will be 'lying low' together in the fifth book, and that'd be the beginning if the book were mine ^^*   
  
Pairings: sbxrl, mentions of jpxlp. If you understand that you like yaoi and are therefore cool.   
  
Summary: Sometime after PoA and GoF but before Sirius goes to 'lay low with Lupin', Sirius muses his life, past and future.   
  
There's less than fifty days left!! Basically i have a huge block and cannot write any of my original stuff, so i came out with this. They're so cute… i like the way my Remus POV (Phases) turned out, in way of characterizing him, but i'm not so sure i like the way i characterized Sirius. The thing i was going for and what i came out with are completely different… Oh well. There can never be too much SiriusxRemus, na no da!   
  
audi   
thegoddess@goddess.com   
  
  
  
-----------  
  
The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. – Oscar Wilde   
  
-----------  
  
  
  
**After the Fact**  
  
  
  
It seems as if my whole life revolves around one person, and one person only. Considering all that I've gone through, that shouldn't be true. I should be hateful and vengeful, but I'm not. I only want to see this one person again and ask for forgiveness. The only thing holding me back is the fear of refusal. I don't want to be refused, I don't want to be alone again.   
  
Sometimes it seems like I'd never lived before Hogworts. I know, somewhere inside, that I spent the first eleven years of my life goofing around with James Potter, but I also spent the following seven doing the same. Only, the following seven were quite different than the previous eleven. Before, it had been Jamie and me either dodging his family and household staff or running from my mum and her frying pan. With Hogworts we were introduced to Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The first year was mostly Jamie and myself against Snape and his cronies, acting like first years tend to.   
  
Second year was when it got interesting. Remus and Peter decided that they wouldn't let Jamie and me have all the fun anymore, so they started to accompany us, Remus was brilliant at planning and Peter, well, he's the reason we got caught so little before the Map. Cautious, he was. Thus we formed the Marauders. Something else happening in that year, something much more important. We found out Remus' secret. It was like a surreal dream; Peter, Jamie and me were starting to get suspicious, Remus was missing the day before a Transfiguration test. Then we did some reading… Things flowed from one thing to the next and before I knew it I was standing under the Cloak watching Remus and Madam Pomfrey heading from the Whomping Willow to the school. We promised to never tell anyone what Remus was and we promised never to abandon him because of it. Soon thereafter we began to read up on Animagi and, without telling Remus, set out to accomplish something that McGonagall told us we couldn't.   
  
Most British witches and wizards live a very similar early life. The first eleven years amount to nothing and the following seven mean everything. A witch or wizard will enter Hogworts and their best friends for the rest of their life will be their Housemates (especially dorm-mates). Depending on which House the they're in, they'll act accordingly and develop a strong sense of House-pride that they'll carry forever. Most meet their future spouse in those years and marry soon after they leave school. James and Lily were the perfect example. Both of them were prefects and Head Boy and Girl on top of that. They married within months of graduating and had Harry ten months later.   
  
I always had a girlfriend when I wanted one, and sometimes when I didn't. The same was true for boyfriends. I've never really had a problem with my sexuality, my friends've always accepted for who I am. In reality, my dating was always a cover-up. I thought that dating nearly everyone not in Slytherin or my dorm room would make it all better. What a joke! Every new face made it harder not to see him, every set of lips tasted that much fouler… I was falling apart inside. It seemed like nearly everyone wanted a piece of me, everyone but the one that I wanted. Jamie detected this and offered me his sympathy. I think Jamie found out early fifth year, before we became Animagi.   
  
My Animagus form is a canine, as is the wolf. To me, that made it that much clearer that we were meant to be. I loved him so much it hurt, I got to the point where I couldn't date anyone. No one was good enough for me, no one was Remus.   
  
I told him what I felt in the first week of sixth year. I spent all summer building up courage and didn't want to lose it. Great Gryffindor I am, huh? He thought I was jesting, of course. I really can't blame him, not with my record. He told me not to play around, not to mock his pain and his suffering. He wanted to know if Peter had told him. I told him that I wasn't playing and that Peter told me nothing asides what was going to be on the Potions post-holiday exam. Remus was still sceptical. Then he fed me some shit about how I didn't love him, I was only fooling myself and it was only lust. Apparently I didn't know what love was. The next bit was the worst, though. Remus said that he was a dark creature and he couldn't ever love anyone because then they'd be mated to him forever and no one deserves to be mated to a dark creature. I kissed him, I wanted to shut him up and I wanted to prove him wrong. My heart was his and had been for years. Remus was, and is, my everything. The 'mate for life' bit was a benefit, a thrill. I thought we'd always be together and that just made it that much more real for me.   
  
After school, we found a flat in Muggle London and moved in. We were trapped in our ideal world where everything was perfect.   
  
The world of the time was anything but perfect, though. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were everywhere, and no one knew who to trust. People were dying everywhere, in our world and in the Muggle one. From the Muggle side of my family I learned just how they thought of Voldemort's attacks, but it didn't change a thing. People were dying and neighbours were fighting each other for a chance to survive to see the next day.   
  
I was sent to Azkaban. I was an innocent man sentenced to twelve years in that hellhole. Okay, so I wasn't innocent, but I didn't do what they said I had. I might have blamed myself for Jamie's death and for Lily's, but I'm not a Death Eater, never was, and I was never the Potters' Secret Keeper. That in itself is a story. Being Jamie's oldest friend, he asked me to protect his family's life. He was shocked when I refused, but I he understood.   
  
The first reason is the one I'll give out willingly to anyone that asks; Peter seemed to be a better choice. I was Jamie's best friend, everyone that went to Hogworts with us knew that. We were nearly unseparateble, even after we found Lily and Remus. Peter was a good friend, too, but he was always the weakest of us all, the one that had to try the hardest to graduate, the one who almost didn't become Animagus. We never thought Peter would even think about becoming a Death Eater, let alone give the Potters away. Who knew that when I said farewell to Jamie that time I trusted a Death Eater with his fate? I couldn't even talk to my best mate at the end of the day to make sure he was still alive. I couldn't talk to Peter just in case, either. It was just Remus and me. Just the two of us struggling to survive.   
  
The second reason is the one that I will never forgive myself for. It hurts, so much… I can't believe that I ever thought like I did. The _Prophet_ gave the news on who was a known Death Eater and other allies of Voldemort. One group growing in population on that list was the one entitled 'vampires and werewolves'. Werewolves… It was said that Voldemort killed any who didn't join him and his. Remus wouldn't have joined, not in his right mind, but once a month he doesn't know what he's thinking. Once a month he loses all rational thought... I was scared... I love him, utterly and completely, and he's always had this commanding presence. I can't deny him anything at all. If I was the Potters' Secret Keeper, I would have felt the need to tell Remus where they were hiding. It was hard enough not telling him that Peter was the Secret Keeper. Jamie understood this one, though, he said it would be the same with Lily, and had nothing to do with the fact that Remus is a werewolf. That logically eliminated Remus and myself, so he chose Peter.   
  
I promised him way back in second year that I'd never hold his being a werewolf against him, and I promised him in sixth year that I'd always love him. We convinced our parents of that truth and we hoped for, and in the end received, their full support for what we were. What we were… Young. Innocent. Proud. We were two boys straight out of school and into the harsh reality of the time.   
  
He may be my mate, and maybe that's why I feel the need to find him again, but I don't know if he'll want me back. I wouldn't want me back. I betrayed him and his trust. I don't deserve him but at the same time I can't live without him any longer. Locked away in Azkaban, the thought of him and how I betrayed him and how I wanted to make it all better was all that truly kept me sane (though becoming Padfoot helped, too). I thought about Remus and how much he must have been hurting and how much he must have been blaming me. He probably thought that I _had_ killed Peter and that I _did_ turn Jamie and Lily in.   
  
When we graduated we said that the Marauders would live on forever. Just as there was always a war between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins, there was to be a group of Marauders to follow in our footsteps. Jamie and Peter would have children that they would raise to be the perfect little Gryffindors, and we'd all teach them. They'd have the Map and the Cloak and other gadgets we had gathered over time. It would be perfect, we'd all teach them and irritate the professors of generations to come. Moony, Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail would become legend like Godric Gryffindor. But now Moony, Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail have had their moment in fame. Now Prongs is dead, Wormtail shall die soon, Moony probably wishes he was dead and Padfoot is about ready to lose his head.   
  
If I tried hard enough I could find him. Well, there's no trying to it, really. I have the directions to his cabin sitting in front of me, and access to the tube – hiding in London has its benefits, and if I take the tube down Bakerloo and then take the train from Marylebone, I can be within a three mile walk in a matter of two and a half hours. It's a mentality issue, really. Two months ago I finished alerting the 'old crowd' and I checked up on Harry when I visited Arabella, well I talked to all the living 'old crowd' but one member. Dumbledore told me to 'lie low at Lupin's' as if it were something easy for me to do. He's always had a motive or two behind his actions and he's always known everything about the on-goings at Hogworts. I've no doubt he knows about my relationship with Remus. 'Else why would he send me to him? Remus' is not the safest place for me to be by any means. He's a werewolf, firstly, and an easy target. But he'll give me a mental stability, or so Dumbledore probably hopes.   
  
The full moon is in two days, I've always kept track of it, just in case. Remus has had to endure one hundred sixty-two transformations without me and I have no intention of making it one hundred sixty-three. Besides, seeing him during the moon will let Moony get used to me again before Remus does. Let Moony and Padfoot be together and then Sirius and Remus can work out their complicated human emotions. Let the wolf recognize that he has his mate back first, and that's all I can hope for. I have to give it a go, though. Reuniting with Remus will be my first true step towards normalcy… I need to take one step at a time and relearn everything to regain those twelve years I lost. 


End file.
